This is the first book to describe those Australians known as the new class. They work in knowledge industries, which have expanded rapidly in recent decades: universities, the media, publishing, public policy, schools and the arts. In a society where knowledge is increasingly important, the opinion-formers of the new class now have an immense influence on government and form a power base that rivals the traditional establishment. Betts explores the growth of the new class and examines, using immigration and race as examples, how it came to adopt values that conflict with those held by most Australians. [Book jacket]

'The great divide : immigration politics in Australia' was first published in 1988 by Melbourne University Press under the title 'Ideology and immigration : Australia 1976 to 1987'. See http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/24840.